The Barbie Movie

D is for Division

April 2018 •Latvian

1940. On the border between Latvia and the USSR, a woman is killed in front of her house as she tried to protect her son from the liberating attack of the Soviets. Almost 80 years later, the archive photo bearing witness to this news item and representing a collateral victim of the European Union’s founding conflict forms the starting point for a journey undertaken by Davis Sīmanis. He navigates from one side to the other of this border, which today represents another separation, one that is geographical but also cultural: between Europe and Russia.

The Cooking Show

February 2021 •English

The cooking show is as old as television itself. But why do we like watching the making of a meal that most of us will never cook, let alone eat? Dirty Furniture’s jam-packed video essay is a rollercoaster ride through the history of the genre, at once a staple of television viewing and a hotpot of shifting perspectives and sociocultural values.

Visions of Europe

May 2004 •English

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Estudio de danza

April 2024 •Spanish

The "cueca" is Chile's national dance. Marveled by this form of dancing, the narrator reflects on the meaning of dance in our lives and how it has been portrayed in the history of cinema.

Four Shorts on Architecture

October 1975 •English

A visual essay on contemporary Kiwi architecture.

Um Documentário Brasileiro

May 2021 •Portuguese

O malém světě

February 1968 •Czech

Panoramas

November 2019 •German

In 1829 the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt attempted a russian-siberian expedition. Humboldt travelled to obtain a clear view of nature, people and life in this immense country. 2019 naturalists and humanists attempted a transdisciplinary expedition on the trails of Humboldt. To capture the events various cameras were taken along. A non-chronological narration.

Watching the Pain of Others

April 2019 •French

In this deeply personal video diary, a young researcher tries to make sense of her fascination for the film "The Pain of Others" by Penny Lane. A deep dive into the discomforting world of YouTube and online conspiracies, that challenges traditional notions of what documentary cinema is, or should be.

Elemental

June 2015 •English

40,000 years in the making: Kogonada's video essay created for The Connected Series.

Obit

January 2017 •English

How do you put a life into 500 words? Ask the staff obituary writers at the New York Times. OBIT is a first-ever glimpse into the daily rituals, joys and existential angst of the Times obit writers, as they chronicle life after death on the front lines of history.

Debra Paget, For Example

March 2016 •English

A video essay where the author presumes motivations and insights in a fictionalized biography regarding Debra Paget, a contract player for 20th-Century Fox whom they groomed and coached for stardom.

Letters from Wolf Street

October 2025 •Polish

A street in downtown Warsaw transforms into a kaleidoscopic portrait of Polish society. Behind the viewfinder is an Indian immigrant, who seeks to overcome the boundaries between himself and an anxiety-ridden country.

And the Dogs Were Silent

April 1976 •French

For 'Et les chiens se taisaient' Maldoror adapted a piece of theatre by the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), about a rebel who becomes profoundly aware of his otherness when condemned to death. His existential dialogue with his mother reverberates around the African sculptures on display at the Musée de l'Homme, a Parisian museum full of colonial plunder whose director was the Surrealist anthropologist Michel Leiris.

Metropia

March 2025 •Spanish

October in Madrid

January 1965 •French

Initially a made-to-order documentary on Spain, the film becomes an open-ended work-in-the-making about the creative process. “Settling in the Spanish capital to make a documentary, Hanoun sketches out for us the different steps involved in making a film. The author turns his hesitations, his doubts and difficult working conditions into the constituents of his work”. (Raphaël Bassan)

Cinema Now

April 2022 •English

A fragmented collection of independent closed cinemas, in London during lockdown, captured on Super 8mm film.

The So-Called Caryatids

January 1984 •French

Commissioned by French television, this is a short documentary on the neo-classical statues found throughout Paris, predominantly on the walls of buildings, holding up windows, roofs etc.

Wa(te)r

Invalid date •English

What is a film if not a therapeutic act? Wa(te)r is a poetiс reflection on my 2022–2023 diary entries, poured from one medium to another. I uncovered countless water metaphors intertwined with life and death throughout these entries. I often revisit recurring dreams—one of floods, the other of war—that have haunted me since childhood. Water flows, and everything changes. It ties me to the very beginning, with my mother's hands bathing me, and to the very end, with suicidal despair. All I strive to express emerges from the water, my words engulfing themselves. In these times, water is the most precious resource, reliable conduit to memories, and promise of oblivion. Dedicated to my dear mother and her protective touch.

Don't Work (1968-2018)

July 2018 •French

A year in the life of Elsa Michaud and Gabriel Gauthier, students of Fine Arts in Paris, lovers in troubled times, overwhelmed by maddening verbal and auditory stimuli, witnesses of a globalized violence more visible than ever in a chaotic digital era, in which the slow execution of simple gestures in a silent performance is an act of resistance.